Woes of winter running.

The decorations are back in the attic and the only vestiges of christmas are broken plastic toys and perhaps a few extra pounds on the weighing scales. The same marketeers that were encouraging us to indulge ourselves a few weeks ago are now telling us to get fit......new year, new you.

I've always hated the boom and bust nature of this time of year, the de-tox of January to counter the tox of Christmas, but I suppose it's unavoidable. The turning of the calendar to a new year naturally brings a certain amount of renewal and refocusing.

When it comes to running it's a time of year when I see new faces on my daily run routes as people embrace their resolutions which can only be a good thing. Unfortunately it's a time of year that brings it's own challenges that can make becoming a regular runner difficult- dark, wet, cold weather coupled with seasonal cold and flu's can be challenging for even seasoned runners let alone those who are trying to embrace a healthier new them and form a running habit.

Over the years I've learned to embrace running in winter. As the saying goes 'there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes'. It's a case of controlling the controllable. That said it took many wrong choices to learn which attire was good and which was not but eventually I learned what suited me best. The thing that is less controllable but equally if not more annoying than bad weather is illness.

Last autumn when I decided 2020 was going to be the year I would try everything in my power to find that extra improvement to run a sub three hour marathon, one of the things I decided to focus on was staying healthy through the training period which would run through prime flu season.
As most marathon runners will be aware, there is a period during a marathon taper when everybody lives in fear of getting sick. Washing hands, eating clean and taking supplements become the order of the day. I decided I was going to take this approach from the beginning of the training cycle to avoid missing a chuck of training through illness. I started to take Echinacea, Turmeric, and a multivitamin as well as making sure to wash my hands regularly and generally paid attention to illness avoidance. The result- I got a head cold a week into the training plan.
I continued to train as it didn't break the 'Above the neck rule' . It didn't improve on it's own and and I ended up on antibiotics but still tried to stick to the training plan before eventually ended up having to take ten days off and a stronger antibiotic.

Regardless of how much we plan and try to control things, mother nature and fate often have a different script and things rarely go as planned. The only thing we can do is understand that no matter what the woes of winter running bring, it's up to us to make the best of the hand we're dealt.

With that in mind I'm back on track,  glad to be out running and healthy again regardless of the weather. Last Tuesday the training plan had me down for 4 x 1200 meters. I only had a small window to get the session done. Unfortunately that window coincided with high winds and a status yellow weather alert.

I was not looking forward to it one bit as I drove to a regular running spot. Sideways wind and rain meant I needed two firm hands on the stirring wheel.....the thoughts of reps had the inner voices at war. 

Got changed in the car. Anybody seeing me shirtless with the wind rocking the car definitely got the wrong idea. 

Opened the door and the wind nearly took it clean off the hinges, heaved it closed and braced myself against the tempest. It was like being on the deck of a Deadliest Catch crabbing trawler. I struggled to open my eyes, how the hell was I going to do reps in this............ I got back in the car. 

I was about to drive off as the negative voices raged in my head, when I just said screw it, I needed to use the only running window I had. I got back out, leaned into the wind and shuffled off still debating doing an easy run and moving the session to another day. 

I had the session programmed into my garmin so selected it while the inner voices continued to debate the pros and cons........cons were well ahead on points. A mile and a half miles into the warm up and the watch beeped to indicate the start of the first rep, now or never......f**k it, lets go.

first 1200m rep started at the bottom of a hill into a head wind! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger can still really hurt. 

Got through the session and was never as glad to get back in the car. Had that nice post session feeling of achievement for toughing it out on the way home as the rain lashed off the windscreen. 

Little victories add up.